


The Rain Soaked Angel

by allthebeautifulthings9828



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Caretaker Dean, Castiel in the Bunker, Comfort/Angst, Comforting Castiel, Comforting Dean, Dean Prays, Dean Prays to Castiel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Hurt Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, Injured Castiel, Love, M/M, POV Dean Winchester, Praying to Castiel, Protective Dean Winchester, Rain, Romance, Romantic Angst, Romantic Friendship, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Wet Clothing, Wing Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-02
Updated: 2014-02-02
Packaged: 2018-01-10 21:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1164506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allthebeautifulthings9828/pseuds/allthebeautifulthings9828
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Sam still angry and gone, Dean struggles to be alone in the bunker. He prays to Castiel, uncertain if he'll even be heard. But the next morning, Castiel shows up soaked to the bone of his vessel, having walked toward Dean's prayers in a storm. Miserably wet and wings wrecked by the storm makes Dean unable to let him suffer that way. He's the only human on Earth who can even see Castiel's wings and feels closer to him because of it. So he lets his feelings show through taking care of Castiel that day - using every towel in the bunker to dry his wings. He tries to work up the courage to ask Castiel to stay with him for a while but he doesn't know how it'll go....</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rain Soaked Angel

Freezing February rain poured over northern Kansas for days without relenting more than an hour or two at a time. Dean didn't mind not having any windows in the bunker because it meant he wouldn't have to watch the depressing weather outside.

Things were way too quiet anyway. Sam still hated him. He still hated himself. He'd even resorted to praying to Castiel periodically through the night in a particularly low self-loathing moment even though he didn't even know if the angel's stolen grace worked enough to hear prayers. Maybe he just did it so he wouldn't have to feel so alone.

Early that morning, with a mug of coffee spiked with something no one needed to know about, he patrolled the bunker looking for weaknesses again. Demon wars and angel wars raged out there and he sure as hell wasn't going to let it spill into the only home he had left.

"Hello, Dean."

The hunter spun on his heels, startled to find Castiel in the bunker's kitchen. His first instinct forced him forward for an embrace but his logical mind blocked it. So he swayed forward and back like a drunk, though it was really his heart fighting his mind. He simply stood there staring for a moment the way he always did when a thousands confessions clogged his throat but he couldn't push them out.

"You're wet," he blurted stupidly.

Castiel glanced down at himself and tugged on his new, shorter jacket. It dripped on the floor, making him appear a bit self-conscious. "I walked here," he admitted, a touch of shame darkening his eyes.

"No, I mean your...." His voice trailing off, Dean's hesitant hand raised and gestured to the gray wings hulking over Castiel's vessel. They used to be black. So black that Dean couldn't even see them at night but he never complained because he wasn't supposed to be able to see them at all. Since Castiel swiped another angel's grace, the blackness drained into a strange steel gray color. Soaking wet with rainwater, they resembled the sad state of a stray baby bird thrashed around in a storm. "Still can't mojo?"

"No," replied Castiel with just a hint of dismay beneath his usual monotone. He lowered himself into a chair, the length of his wings leaving huge water marks on the floor. "The feathers finally grew back."

"Yeah," Dean said, nodding.

"Bones are still broken," the angel continued. "I can't heal them. I've tried. We've all tried. At least I know how to steal cars from observing you for so many years."

Dean smirked, carefully stepping closer. "Hot wiring's a great skill to have. It's up there with forgery."

The slightest smile perked up the weariness in Castiel's features. Silence fell between them for a time, tempered by the faintest drip, drip, drip of rainwater falling to the floor from his wings. Angel or not, he couldn't be comfortable so wet and cold like that. Dean glanced at a dish towel hanging from the cabinet below the sink but he decided that would be like trying to soak up Noah's flood with a washcloth.

"I heard you praying," Castiel said quietly, his deep voice slicing through the silence. "I didn't think I would ever hear that again. I came as fast as I could."

"Oh, that," said Dean. "Yeah, last night was not my proudest moment."

"You're drinking again."

The hunter shrugged and escaped into the old butler's hall where he'd installed a washer and a dryer. "Nothing better to do." He dug through the dryer's contents for as many bath towels as he could find. Then he changed his mind and dumped them through the hole again and switched on the dryer for a few minutes. Of course they'd already gone through their cycle but he remembered his mom wrapping him in warm towels after baths when he was a kid. Little recollections popped up in his mind like that sometimes - gems of a real life that he tucked away inside of himself.

"Your brother doesn't hate you, Dean," said Castiel at the kitchen table. "I was with him for more than a week. I know him a lot better now. Sam is a reasonable man but he's his own man with agency in his own decisions. Pain is profound in him right now but it won't last forever. He's your brother and he loves you still."

Dean said nothing. He leaned against the dryer out of sight and pushed away the comforting tone in Castiel's voice. Not one cell in his body deserved to be comforted, especially by the one being in the universe who actually had the power to affect him.

"Dean, I know you hear me," said Castiel even quieter in the other room.

Still, he said nothing. If he opened his mouth at all, a flood of unwanted emotion would break through a 35-year-old dam, so he clenched his jaw and waited for the dryer to beep. When it did, he flung open the door and threw the towels over his arm. It didn't mean anything. He just didn't want Castiel dripping rain all over the bunker because he would, no doubt, follow Dean around in that close proximity his nature preferred. It meant nothing. It meant nothing.

Of course, the pep talk didn't help at all the second he rounded the corner and saw Castiel looking like a pitiful drowned rat with soaked, darkened clothes and ratty, dripping wings spread out from the chair behind him.

"Take off your clothes," he ordered.

"What?" Castiel's brows furrowed as his blue eyes shot up at him.

"It's no big deal, Cas. You've got boxers or something on, right? Just gimme your clothes and I'll run 'em through the wash before you get stuck with that nasty mildew smell."

Hesitantly, Castiel stood and began peeling away layers of his new angel suit. And Dean did everything in his power not to watch like a gawking idiot, right down to flipping through a vintage issue of Busty Asian Beauties in his mind. The women's eyes all began turning blue in seconds, though, and he lost the mental magazine entirely as soon as Castiel's shirt fell on the floor and exposed a tattoo on his abdomen. It stunned Dean, seeing something on Castiel that he never expected, and his head tilted at the foreign letters. Several lines of Enochian etched into the angel's vessel, his flesh forever marked by his origins.

"I got it when I was human," Castiel explained, noticing the way Dean stared. He came closer and twisted to the side to display it better. "It's a spell to hide me from other angels. Of course, it doesn't work now that I got my powers back."

"It's kinda cool looking though." Before Dean realized what he was doing, he reached out and brushed his fingertips over the Enochian words. Only the warmth of Castiel's flesh jerked him into the reality of what he did. He retracted his hand suddenly and cleared his throat. "Sorry. Sit down."

"Why would you be sorry, Dean?" he asked, sinking into the chair again.

"Nothing."

Dean took the opportunity to hide from Castiel's innocent, questioning eyes by skirting around behind him. He dropped the towels in a heap on the floor, all but one, and draped it wide over both of his hands. Uncertain of where to start, he flung the towel over the highest joint of Castiel's wing and sandwiched his hands around the impossibly strong flesh, rubbing back and forth. Part of him felt bad for rubbing the towel between his hands quickly like drying off a dog after a bath but there wasn't an instruction manual for taking care of a broken angel.

"I can do this," Castiel offered.

"No. Just sit still." The idea of Castiel drying his own wings instead of letting Dean do it bothered him in a way he didn't know how to articulate.

"The towel is warm."

"Yeah." He didn't elaborate.

Castiel let out a quiet sigh. "It's nice."

"I know."

Dean moved down a little bit, leaving the feathers over the highest joint completely ruffled and out of sorts. Dry, mostly, but a complete disaster. He smirked to himself, occasionally catching a whiff of musty wetness. Something sweet lingered beneath that odor and he realized it was Castiel's natural scent. He hadn't gotten close enough before to be enveloped in it but he decided, secretly of course, that he enjoyed it. He'd enjoy it even more once the wet dog smell went away.

As he moved a bit lower again, Castiel suddenly hissed and jerked his wing away from Dean's grasp.

"What'd I do?" questioned Dean.

"Cracked bone," Castiel replied through a tense breath.

"Oh, shit. Sorry. I don't even know where wing bones go. I mean, you're not like buying chicken wings at the store." Jesus. What a lame joke. He wanted to kick his own ass, realizing their close proximity had him a bit unglued. He dropped the wet towel and grabbed a new dry one from the pile. "I'll go a little slower."

"You don't have to, Dean." The angel turned in the chair, looking sweetly and compassionately over his naked shoulder.

Dean held his breath for a second and then forced out the words, "I want to."

"All right." Nodding, Castiel's body relaxed and he allowed Dean to continue. "You're not ... afraid? Or intimidated?"

"By what - a pair of wings? No." He knelt, reaching the mid-section with a third towel. It might take every towel in the bunker to soak up the rain from both wings but at least he'd be able to look at Castiel without wondering if he was miserable and cold. "Why the hell would I be freaked out about this?"

"Because it's a constant reminder that I'm not like you."

He shrugged even though he crouched behind Castiel, rubbing wet feathers until they fluffed up again. "Hell, Cas, you were like me for a while and that freaked me out more. Seeing you without these wings was like seeing something get amputated off you. I didn't like it. You didn't feel like you."

The angel scoffed, more amused than irritated. "Since when do you feel anything about me?"

"I feel plenty," Dean mumbled.

Halting conversation died away as Dean labored over the arduous length of Castiel's wet wings. He made a quick trip to the nearest bathroom for more towels to rub down the second wing, always careful whenever he thought he felt the stiffness of a bone supporting the angel's substantial muscle. That kind of strength really amazed him. It was like all of Sam's muscle mass got crammed into a couple of wings and covered over by deceptively soft feathers.

Once he rubbed down the entire twenty foot wingspan, he realized the feathers weren't going to settle on their own. Everything stuck out in odd directions and made Castiel look like a ratty, homeless kind of angel. So Dean curled his fingers into the grain of the feathers and smoothed them down, piece by piece. He desperately tried to divert his thoughts from entrenching in such an intimate act. Rubbing down his wings with towels was one thing but combing his fingers through the feathers, human flesh to angelic muscle, was quite another thing. And if his brother had walked in right then and there, he would have immediately seen directly through Dean. Hell, Dean even saw through himself.

"How's the search for Metatron going?" he asked just to fill the silence.

"Badly," Castiel admitted. "I haven't stopped since I left Sam."

"Hm," replied Dean thoughtfully, "is that why you seem so tired?"

"Angels don't get tired."

"But you are."

"I suppose."

Leaving the wings half-straightened, Dean rounded the chair and crouched in front of Castiel. He pushed himself. Yes, he forced himself to acknowledge the solitary existence they both lived. With his hand draped over Castiel's wrist resting on the arm of the kitchen chair, he looked up at the angel. Eye contact wasn't easy for him but Castiel always seemed to crave that kind of thing. He maintained the visual connection and flicked his tongue nervously over his lips.

"Why don't you stay for a couple of days?" he murmured.

"I thought you'd want to be alone now with everything that's happened," the angel murmured back.

"No." Dean shook his head. "Stay here with me. I ... I need you."


End file.
